Fatty diet linked to liver harm in babies

PREGNANT women who eat a high-fat diet are putting their unborn babies at risk of liver disease later in life, a new study warns.

Babies exposed to the unhealthy diet in the womb saw their livers change in a way which promoted more rapid progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in adulthood.

The exposure caused damaging scarring which cannot be undone by a low-fat diet in childhood.

The findings could have implications for people who are not obese themselves but who had obese mothers.

The disease is a range of conditions caused by a build-up of fat in the liver and usually seen in people who are overweight or obese.

A healthy liver should contain little or no fat and the NHS estimates up to one in three Britons has early stages of the disease.

It is now the most common chronic liver disease in adults and children.

It can lead to serious liver damage, including cirrhosis, and high fat levels in the liver increases the risk of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

The findings by Nationwide Children’s Hospital could spot those at risk for early intervention.

Paediatric endocrinology fellow Dr Michael Thompson said: “Understanding how maternal exposures impact obesity-related disease such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease will allow us to develop lower-cost preventative therapies to utilise up front rather than awaiting complications.

“If human offspring from obese mothers have a similar risk for developing fibrosis as we see in mice, we may be able to predict who is going to develop more serious disease.”